Behind the Wall
by Kinky Kiki
Summary: Bella’s new apartment is perfect. It’s close to work, her friends, and is in a great neighbourhood. There’s only one tiny, little problem: it’s haunted. Who is this spirit haunting Bella and what does he want with her? AU, AH...sort of.


**Hello, hello! This isn't my first fanfiction, but this is the first one that I've been working seriously on for a long time. Please be nice. **

**I'd like to thank Melissa from Project Team Beta, as well as the other who did not give me her name, for beta'ing this puppy. Without you there would be a lot of missed words. **

**Disclaimer: All characters belong to the wonderful Stephenie Meyer. **

* * *

**Chapter One**

_Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!_

I rolled my eyes, not bothering to hide my annoyance as Emmett began to ring out his fifth sheet of bubble wrap. The idiot was sitting in the middle of my living room floor with a couple of empty boxes. The boxes were filled with the bubble wrap I packed everything in. His childlike amusement from it had been really funny and cute at first, but now it was just… well, annoying.

"Oh my God, Emmet, will you stop that?" Emmett's little sister apparently had the same thoughts as I did. Reaching over, she yanked the bubble wrap out of Emmett's hands, chucked it into one of the cardboard boxes, and kicked it away from him.

"Alice!" Emmett cried dramatically, "We spent the entire day doing back breaking work and didn't even get offered drinks. I gotta get my payment somehow." I didn't miss the meaningful glance he gave me as he reached over and dragged the box back to his side.

Alice scoffed and sat down on the couch beside me. Emmett had been pissing and moaning all day that I wasn't going to buy them beer after we were done unpacking and my patience was running thin. He didn't seem to realize that moving cost a lot of money and I was running very low on my funds right now.

_Pop! Pop! Pop!_

"Emmett Cullen!" I growled at him. He grinned at me, slowly began popping the bubbles one by one. "You're just like a little kid."

_Pop!_

I turned to Alice, trying to tune Emmett out. "Remind me again why I asked your brother to help me move?"

_Pop!_

"Because you needed someone to carry the heavy boxes and you were too cheap to hire helpers." Alice retorted, gritting her teeth.

_Pop!_

"I am not cheap! I just don't see the need to spend all that money when I have friends who can help me out."

_Pop!_

"Friends like Emmett."

_Pop!_

Groaning, I got up and grabbed the bubble wrap out of Emmett's grasp and picked up the boxes around him. "Fine!" I relented, practically throwing the boxes into the corner farthest away from Emmett. I was feeling pretty damn cranky, probably thanks to a combination of PMS and working non-stop for the entire day, and Emmett was _not_ helping my mood. "We'll go to a bar and I'll buy you a couple drinks."

"Yes!" Emmett pumped his fist up in the air. Getting up, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek, "You're the best, Bella."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I rolled my eyes, "Let me go change quickly then we'll head down, okay?"

I hurried down the hall and into my new bedroom, flicking on the light. Grabbing the hem of my tank top, I pulled it off and tossed it on my bed while walking over to my dresser and grabbing a light blue tee-shirt. I felt gross, all clammy and sweaty from what I did today. Who knew unpacking could've been so much work?

A loud _thunk_ made me jump. I instinctively clutched the shirt to my chest in an attempt to cover myself and looked around the room. A couple of books that had been on my bedside table were now scattered around on the floor. I felt a little stupid at jumping and laughed to myself. I had placed the books on top of each other close to the edge earlier today and they must have just toppled over from the weight. I quickly pulled my shirt on and went to the books, picking them up and stacking them on the table again, making sure they were away from the edges.

"Bella, hurry up!" Emmett called from the living room.

"I'm coming!"

"What was that sound?" he asked as I stepped out of my room.

"Some books just fell over." I grabbed my purse and keys and shut the lights off. Alice and Emmett were already out the door.

This was the first time I was truly out on my own. I had lived with my mom in Phoenix up until my junior year when she remarried, so I went to go live with my dad Charlie in Forks to give my mom some alone time with Phil. After that, I moved to Seattle to go to college and lived with my dorm mate until I graduated with a degree in journalism. Up until now, I always had someone to live with. But I was on my own now. A grown up.

And that was something that both excited and scared the shit out of me.

Alice was the one who found the ad for this apartment. We had had a plan that after our four years of college were up, we would move in together. But during Alice's third year of interior design, she had a revelation and decided that what she wanted to do with her life was teach kindergarten, not design. Her family had enough money to help her through this transition, but she didn't want to rely on them for housing, nor did she want to get a job, so she decided to stay in the dorms and I was left without a roommate. Living with Emmett was out of the question too, I loved him to death but knew that I would eventually kill him if I had to _live_ with him.

So Alice went to work finding me a place to live. I kept telling her she didn't need to but she was a stubborn one who was used to getting her way. She found this apartment in the newspaper for a really good price. I knew there had to be a catch. I mean, come on, a nice, upscale apartment in a good part of town that was cheaper than most of the apartments we had looked at with nothing wrong with it? Not fucking likely. We must've looked at the place at least ten times (all at different times of the day to see what the neighbours were like) and could find nothing wrong with it. So I made an offer on it and got it.

We managed to find a bar about a block away from my new apartment and went in. I ordered us a round of beer while the two siblings went to go find us a place to sit. The bartender said she would bring the drinks to our table so I made my way through the crowd and sat down beside Alice. "I really appreciate you guys helping me today," I told them.

"It was no problem!" Alice waved me off, "Unlike some people –" she glared at Emmett "- I was going to help you move no matter what."

"Sure, make me look like the bad guy." He grumbled.

A waitress arrived with our drinks and placed them in front of us. Alice crinkled her nose delicately at the choice of alcohol but held her tongue, she knew better than to complain. She knew that she and Emmett were lucky to get any alcohol at all. She grabbed the bottle and raised it in the air, "A toast to Bella's new apartment!"

"And to bubble wrap!" Emmett grinned, thrusting his bottle up into the air.

* * *

It was about eleven when I finally managed to drag my ass out of bed and get into the shower. I ended up treating Emmett and Alice to a couple more drinks than I had expected and was now paying the price for it. Hangovers suck.

Unfortunately, I still had some last minute things to do today and couldn't just sit and watch T.V. like I really wanted to. I had to put away some of the books I never got to unpack yesterday, then gather all the cardboard boxes up and throw them out. Sometime during the day, guys would be coming to set my internet up and who knew when they were actually going to show. I was told one o'clock but I doubted they'd be here until at least three.

I quickly got dressed into a pair of sweats and an old tee-shirt, pulling my still wet hair up into a ponytail. I went into the living room and looked at the two boxes of books sitting by my couch and grabbed the smaller of the two, grunting loudly as I heaved it into my room. I dropped the box on my bed and went back to grab the other one, also dropping it onto my bed.

It was too quiet, and I was beginning to feel a little antsy. I wasn't used to being alone; I had grown accustomed to my former roommate's constant gossiping. If Jessica wasn't talking to me, she was complaining, loudly, on her cell.

Eventually, the silence got to me. I was acutely aware of all noises around me, little creaks, people moving around outside in the hall, and I felt like I was going crazy. I ran into the living room and turned on the T.V, cranking the volume up.

Now I could get to work. I walked back to my room and paused, frowning. The smaller of the boxes was open and there were a couple books lying on my bed. Did I open the box before turning on the T.V? I couldn't remember. _Well you must have, otherwise there wouldn't be books on the bed_, I reasoned with myself.

"Oh well," I said to myself. I grabbed the books that were on the bed and placed them in the large bookshelf I had made Emmett put together for me yesterday. The background noise from the T.V. made me feel more at ease and I found myself enjoying arranging my books.

"Uh oh." I frowned. I finished unpacking the smaller box and was now halfway through the last one when I came across a problem. I was running out of room on the shelves. I had bought the biggest bookshelf that I could afford. It was just about my height, had five adjustable shelves, and still couldn't fit all my books onto it? What the hell?

I stuffed as many books as I could on the last shelf and began to place the rest of the books on top of the others. It was going to bug me that they couldn't be upright like the others but I couldn't really do anything about it at the moment.

_Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!_

I screamed and jumped, dropping the books I was holding. I ran into the living room and looked around frantically, trying to figure out what that sound was. It sounded almost exactly like bubble wrap being popped, but bubble wrap didn't pop itself.

With my heart going a mile a minute, I quickly checked around the apartment to make sure no one was there. Spooked, I went to my door and made sure everything was locked and that the deadbolt was in place.

_The T.V. is on pretty loud._ I told myself, taking deep breaths to try and calm me down, _It could've been something that was on T.V._

I glanced over to the T.V. There were infomercials playing on the channel I left it on. I let out a laugh and shook my head, feeling stupid. I couldn't believe how worked up I was getting over a noise. A noise that was most likely caused by some stupid infomercial.

I walked back into my room and got back to work. I couldn't fit any more of my books on the bookshelf so I stacked them on top of it. I grabbed the boxes off my bed and broke them down.

* * *

Okay, so I'm pretty sure that there's something wrong with my bedroom.

Well, no, not my bedroom, just my bookshelf. Seriously, every single day I'll go into my room for something and find books scattered on my floor. At first I thought that the bookshelf was slanted, Emmett wasn't known for his handyman skills. But the books that fell were always random. Sometimes it would be from the top shelf, sometimes it would be from the bottom shelf, and sometimes books would fall from all five shelves.

The first couple days it started happening, I got scared. It was right after I figured out that there was no possible way for the books to fall on their own. Fear soon turned into annoyance after I had to put the damn books back for the third time in one day.

That's what I was doing right now, putting the books that fell away while swearing under my breath. Alice and Emmett were supposed to be here any minute now for a movie night and I knew for a fact that when it was time for me to go to bed tonight, I'd have to pick up the books yet again.

The buzzer sounded and I sighed. I was just going to leave the books on the floor and worry about them in the morning. Dropping the books I was holding onto the floor, I got up to let Emmett and Alice in and then began to get the junk food ready for the movie tonight.

"Knock, knock." Emmett called, coming through the door. Alice skipped around him and hugged me, placing a couple bags of chips on the counter.

"I would suggest that we drink tonight since last week didn't go that well," Alice started, grabbing a large bowl and mixing the different flavoured chips into it, "But since it's your first day of work tomorrow, it's not the best idea for you to be drinking."

I grinned. I had gotten a job as an editor for a small newspaper company. It wasn't anything big, or well-known for that matter, but it was a start.

We got the food ready for the movie and Emmett put the DVD in. We were having a Johnny Depp marathon and started off with _Edward Scissorhands_. I grabbed the bowl of chips and went into the living room, sitting down between Alice and Emmett on my couch.

About three quarters through the movie, I heard two consecutive _thunks_ from right behind the couch, making all three of us jump. "What the hell was that?" Emmett said, twisting around to look behind the couch. "Books?"

"What?" I whipped around and leaned over the back of the couch. Sure enough, two books were lying spaced apart on the floor about two feet away from the couch. My breath caught when I realized that the two books were the books I had been holding right before Emmett and Alice rang the buzzer.

"How the hell did those get here?" Alice asked, getting up. She walked over to the books and picked them up.

"I don't know." I got up and walked into my bedroom. Emmett paused the movie and followed me.

There weren't any more books on the floor when I got there. In fact, all the books that I had left on the floor had been put back onto my bookshelf. "Okay, I'm started to get a little freaked out now."

Alice and Emmett both gave me questioning looks and I sighed. I ushered them back into the living room and began to explain what had been happening for the past week. "I guess since the books seemed to fall just in front of the bookshelf, there was some logical reason why." I said, running a hand through my hair.

"But that's all that's been happening?" Alice asked, still holding the books in her lap.

"Yeah, it didn't scare me. It was just annoying having to pick the books up every time I walked into my room." I gave a frustrated sigh and leaned back against the couch.

"So whatever it is doing this really seems to really hate books then." Emmett commented, grabbing the book from Alice. He scrunched up his nose as he flipped through the small paperback, "Really, Bella? A trashy romance novel?"

"Shut up." I felt my cheeks flush as I snatched the book away from him. "This is serious. What am I going to do?"

"There's nothing you really can do." Alice said.

We decided to continue with the movies after that and I managed to put the books out of my mind. After _Edward Scissorhands_, I was starting to get really tired. We decided to have our Johnny Depp marathon another night and Emmett and Alice got up to leave.

"I can stay over if you want me to." Alice offered, giving me a hug. I declined and saw them to the door, locking and putting the deadbolt in place after. I sighed and glared at the books Alice placed on the coffee table. I was just going to leave them there for now.

I went in my room and began to get ready for bed, ignoring the couple books that were on the floor. I had something I wanted to try but for right now, I had to get ready for my new job tomorrow.

* * *

**And there you have it. Please review. :D **


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